Stags find ways to deal with the pressure of being one of high school sports' true dynasties.

The Shawnigan Lake Stags are benefactors of great expectations or a team that has to battle massive pressure every time out. Like so many other things, it all depends on how you frame it.

Shawnigan Lake coach Tim Murdy and his charges obviously prefer the former. They are one of the few remaining dynasties in B.C. school sports, a program that’s been to nine straight triple-A boys rugby championships and won seven of those, including the past two.

They’re the No. 1-ranked squad in the province again this season and seemingly didn’t do a single thing to hamper that on Saturday, when the beat their arch-nemesis, the second-ranked St. George’s Saints, 36-0.

“The players do feel a little bit of pressure, but it comes with the territory,” said Murdy, whose in his 11th year at the co-ed private boarding school, which is located about a 45-minute drive north from Victoria.

“I try to get the kids to understand that the season is about them and their journey. I try to get them to understand that last year’s team and the teams before them are different teams. This year is about them and how they embrace their challenges.

“Sometimes you don’t win. That’s fine, as long as you lose for the right reasons. It’s OK to lose if the other team is better. It isn’t if you’re not prepared and you didn’t commit yourself.”

He makes a lot of sense. It still has to be complex predicament.

The last time Shawnigan Lake wasn’t in the triple-A final was 2007, when St. Michaels University School beat St. George’s 21-12 for the B.C. banner.

Milan Lucic was leading the Vancouver Giants to the Memorial Cup major junior hockey national title crown that spring. Counting playoffs, he’s played more than 800 NHL games since then. Avril Lavigne’s The Best Damn Thing was the top-selling album in the world in 2007 while The Sopranos beat out Boston Legal, Heroes, House and Grey’s Anatomy for the outstanding drama series Emmy Award that year.

The Shawnigan Lake veterans this year do sound like they have a grasp on proceedings, though.

Team captain Seth Purdey said there’s a pride and a tradition that’s passed down from team to team, and he contended that it’s important for each group to do what it can to “create our own legacy.”

Vice-captain Ian Leigh admits that there’s “a pressure, but we do our best to put each other under pressure at practice each day.”

“We don’t focus on results,” said Purdey, a senior.

“We rely on team system and sticking to our game plan, and we trust the coaches have developed the right game plan for us for that game.”

Leigh, also a Grade 12, added: “For me, the most important thing is the effort. Sometimes we’ll win, and sometimes we’ll lose. If we lose and the other team is better than us, I’m OK with it, as long as we’ve given 100 per cent.”

Shawinigan Lake Stags Seth Purdey falls over the goal line to score what proved to be the winning try while wrapped up by Saint George’s Saints Cameron MacPhail, left, and Owen Pitblado during the quad-A High School Rugby Championship Game at Rotary Stadium in Abbotsford last May.RICHARD LAM /
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Purdey was openly excited about the weekend win over St. George’s, the Vancouver-based private school.

Shawnigan Lake has played St. George’s in the past four provincial finals. They won 12-8 last year. St. George’s is the last team to beat them for the title, scoring a 15-12 win in 2014.

“Playing them is the biggest game of the year,” said Purdey. “In a lot of ways, it’s everything for us at Shawnigan. That’s the game we really look forward to every year, considering the history between the two programs.”

Murdy tagged this St. George’s crew as a “very, very good team who are well-coached and always play hard,” and feels that there are a “competitive last six to eight weeks to the season,” coming up.

It’s what you’d expect him to say. Shawnigan Lake will be the team that everyone gets up to play, and everyone is trying to beat. Murdy doesn’t deny that. He admits that he tries to sell that as positive to his group.

“It’s something that they shouldn’t be nervous about,” he said. “They should embrace it. It’s more a compliment than anything.

“Do they get it? I hope they get it to a certain degree. They’re like any teenagers. They get higher than they should at times and they get lower than they should at times. Part of the fun of coaching at this level and is seeing how they invested they get in the whole process.”

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